


pride of place

by narcissablaxk



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Bonsai Therapy, Bonsai trimming, But Robby is with his father, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Plant care as therapy, Post S3, Romance, The kids are smarter than their fathers, affirmations, but what else is new, discussion of abuse, lawrusso, or whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29863317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/pseuds/narcissablaxk
Summary: “Of course I have a place for it,” he said.And youwent unsaid, but Johnny’s eyes looked like he heard it.orJohnny thinks he's too stupid to trim a bonsai without messing it up and Daniel tries to convince him otherwise.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 16
Kudos: 169





	pride of place

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by nadianecromancer on Tumblr, who has some fantastic Lawrusso comics that touch my heart every single time I see them! Go check them out!

Johnny was not used to LaRusso’s style of training. He expected that – not many people could handle the Way of the Fist, after all. He’d seen the breathing exercises LaRusso made his son do; he’d scoffed, but it seemed like it helped, so he never said anything out loud. He wasn’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth, even if the horse was a smug idiot about it. 

So when their dojos combined, he expected that he’d have to make some changes to his teaching style. There were some things he wasn’t going to change, but he’d let LaRusso keep some things too. He called that being mature. 

Except the longer they worked together, the more he allowed LaRusso to keep. First it was the stupid chores. He’d allowed it only because the idea of Tory painting a fence was enough to make him bust a gut laughing. Then he realized what LaRusso was doing, and he was, reluctantly, mildly impressed. 

Then it was the balance pond. No self-respecting person with a sense of humor would get rid of that shit. Watching Demetri and Hawk fall off the platform again and again and again, until Hawk’s mohawk was dripping and limp amused him so much he was almost disappointed when they got it right, which LaRusso noticed. He’d earned a bony elbow in his side for that.

But now the asshole was turning the Miyagi tricks on _him_ , and that was, frankly, where he drew the line. He’d refused to get on the damn balance thingy (what in the hell lived in that pond, anyway?), and he had definitely not waxed the stupid cars. But Daniel poked and prodded and pleaded with him about trimming the damn little trees, and Johnny held strong until Daniel gave him a withering look and said: 

“Who knew big, strong Johnny Lawrence was afraid of some bonsai?” 

“I’m not afraid of them,” Johnny sneered. “I just don’t want to do your gardening for you, LaRusso.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “It’s not gardening –”

“Trimming trees _is_ gardening –”

“It’s meditative.” 

“I don’t know what the fuck that means –”

“It’s therapeutic,” Daniel tried again. 

“You tellin’ me I need therapy, LaRusso?” 

And then Daniel had fixed him with a raised eyebrow look that told Johnny that yes, he really did think he needed some kind of therapy, and Johnny had to physically restrain himself from tossing out a _pot, kettle_ comment that would have catapulted them on the road to a fist fight in less than ten seconds. 

“I’m just saying, if you’re too pussy to trim a tree –”

“Jesus Christ, fine, give it here,” he finally said, exasperated, holding out his hands. Daniel held the little tree closer to his chest, staring at Johnny’s hands like they were some kind of communicable disease, and yeah, maybe he had some dirt under his fingernails, but fuck you, LaRusso, some of us do handyman work on the side to afford rent. 

Fucker. 

“Not out here,” Daniel said. “Come on.” 

He took Johnny to a little table on the deck, where there was already another set of bonsai waiting. Johnny narrowed his eyes at them, as if they were judging him. Well, they were LaRusso’s plants, so they probably were. 

“It’s an exercise,” Daniel explained, his voice softer now that Johnny had finally given in. “Come on, sit down.” 

He patted the chair beside him and Johnny sat, feeling absurdly like he was at the beginning of some weird new-age first date, and he was about to be tested on something he knew nothing about. He pulled his flannel sleeves down, unbuttoning them and rolling them up to his forearms, and waited. 

“I want you to _actually_ try this,” Daniel warned, and Johnny pouted like a chastised kid. “And not be a dick about it.” 

“That’s what you like about me, LaRusso,” Johnny countered. “My –” he stopped, Daniel turning to him and raising his eyebrows. 

“Your dick… _attitude_?” he offered helpfully. 

“Sure,” he said dismissively, ignoring the way his ears went hot and Daniel chuckled like he noticed. 

“Okay, so Mr. Miyagi always said that to trim a bonsai correctly, you have to close your eyes and picture what you want the tree to look like,” Daniel said, his voice going gentle, the way it always did when he talked about his sensei. Johnny tried not to feel jealous. “Picture it and then open your eyes and do what you need to make it happen.” 

“I’m not going to trim one of your perfect little trees into some weird shape,” Johnny muttered. 

“Johnny –”

“What if you hate it?” Which was a real possibility, considering the amount of times Johnny got an ugly, frowny face from Daniel on an average training day, which was a lot. He wasn’t a math nerd or anything, but it was a lot.

“It’s not about what I think –”

“LaRusso, these are your pride and joy or whatever,” Johnny reminded him. “You can’t just sacrifice one to me and whatever I turn it into.” 

“Bonsai have strong roots,” he said, and Johnny could tell, from the way he spoke, that he was quoting Mr. Miyagi. “If you have strong roots, then you’ll be fine.” 

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Did he have strong roots? It was a complicated question, one that he certainly couldn’t answer before LaRusso would take his silence as some kind of invitation to nudge him toward the plant, so he stood up, so fast he almost knocked the chair over. 

“You know what, I gotta go,” he said, trying not to look down at Daniel’s face, which he knew would be a mess of confusion, anger, and hurt. He didn’t offer any form of explanation (he didn’t have one), or any apology. He just grabbed his keys off the counter inside the house and left, turning up the music in his car so loud that his thoughts couldn’t be heard over it. 

He didn’t need to know what he was thinking.

***

The bonsai was still on the table when he returned two days later for training, ignored text messages and phone calls lending a weight to the phone in his pocket that he tried desperately to ignore. The students were already there when he arrived, which was exactly what he planned, so he managed to avoid LaRusso’s disapproving look in favor of getting the students lined up and warming up. 

Daniel didn’t speak to him throughout the training, even when Johnny got bold and spoke directly to him. He just focused on the students, a model of professionalism, but Johnny could see the wounded way he held himself, the way he made sure his facial expressions were always closed off. 

LaRusso was always really good at making him feel worse. 

He ducked out the moment training was done – he went to his car like he was being chased, which wasn’t even true, because Daniel refused to look in his direction, much less chase him to his car. He hadn’t expected that. LaRusso was nothing if not a glutton for punishment and confrontation. He expected some kind of shouting match in the front lawn, a sucker punch in the gut, _something_. Something more than the nothing LaRusso was giving him. 

Somehow that made him feel worse. 

He drove home in a daze, his body thrumming with adrenaline, like it had been prepared for a fight, and now that it hadn’t come, he had all kinds of energy and no outlet for it. He tried to use it cleaning out his fridge, but there was less in there to throw out than before, now that Robby was here every other week, eating the grapes and the cherry tomatoes when Johnny let them get wrinkled and old. 

He scrubbed the toilet, the shower, the sink, he vacuumed the carpet. Hell, he even balled his sheets up to take them down to the laundromat and decided against it. 

Why did a stupid tree matter so much? 

He knew why it mattered to LaRusso – that was asked and answered. But he didn’t understand why the idea of putting a little living thing in front of him and asking him to carve it to his liking freaked him out. 

He had no problem destroying things, why was the molding and nurturing of a thing so much harder? 

He was sitting on the armchair in the living room when Robby came home, his court-ordered community service hours finished for the day, sipping a soda out of a glass bottle so it felt like a beer but wasn’t one. He still didn’t have an answer to the question, and every time he thought about it, he felt a tightness in his chest that he didn’t like, so he decided that it was just a question he wouldn’t answer. 

Robby took his shoes off by the front door (a remnant of living with the LaRussos), and dropped his backpack on the couch. 

“What did you do to Mr. LaRusso?” he asked, his voice still quiet when he spoke directly to him. 

Johnny tore his eyes away from the evening news, _Wheel of Fortune_ officially over, and looked over toward his son. “What?” 

“I went by Miyagi-do today,” Robby said matter-of-factly. “To do some katas before I came home. He’s upset. What did you do?” 

“How do you know I did something?” Johnny asked, feeling his shoulders inch up toward his ears. “I’m not always the guilty one –”

Robby leaned forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “I know you don’t like hearing this, but I know Mr. LaRusso. I’ve seen him pissed off. He just rambles and throws his hands around.” Robby lifted his hands over his shoulders in a weak imitation and Johnny smiled at the thought. Yeah, he’d seen that plenty of times. “But with whatever you did?” Robby looked up and met his gaze unflinchingly. “He won’t talk about it. He’s not talking at all. That’s how I know.”

Johnny stood up and went into the kitchen, taking his little glass bottle of soda with him, no destination in mind, just trying to put space between himself and his son’s perceptive gaze. “Anyone could have done that.” 

“But it was you,” Robby said. “Wasn’t it?” 

“Because it’s always my fault?” Johnny asked, and he was raising his voice, and he _hated it_ the moment he noticed, because he didn’t want this to be a fight, not another fight about Daniel fucking LaRusso. Because he knew where his son would land – on the other side. 

But Robby stood up and went over to the fridge, closing the space Johnny had created, and pulled out a bottle of water. “Because he cares about what you think,” he said calmly. “More than probably anyone else.” 

“That’s not true –”

“You feel guilty,” Robby replied. “I can tell.” He surveyed his father’s visage, his brow furrowed. “You’ve got the same face you always had when you were trying to talk to me.” 

The pit in Johnny’s gut widened and threatened to swallow him whole. 

“I don’t know what you two are fighting about, but you’re both obviously upset about it, so why don’t you just…I don’t know, apologize first so you can hold it over him for the rest of your life?” Robby shrugged, reaching into the fridge for the last handful of cherry tomatoes. “That sounds like something you two would do.” 

***

Daniel sat at the edge of the pond, his feet dangling in the water, after Robby went home. He’d artfully dodged Robby’s repeated questions of _are you okay? Are you sure?_ He knew the kid didn’t really believe him, but he was finished being a wedge that forced father and son apart, so even though he wanted to talk to someone, he decided almost immediately that Robby was not that person. 

“Dad?” Sam’s voice caught him off-guard and he jumped, his feet moving weakly under the water. “I’m about to head out, do you want me to bring this bonsai inside?” 

He turned to her; the bonsai he’d left out for Johnny to trim was in her hands. “No,” he said. “Leave it.” 

“It’s going to get too much sun out here –”

“Just leave it,” he said, getting to his feet. “It’ll be fine.” 

Sam set it back down on the table and looked up at him with a question in her eyes. “Why can’t I move the tree, Dad?” 

He walked over, feeling little pieces of grass stick to his feet. “It needs to be trimmed,” he hedged. “That’s it.” 

She raised an eyebrow. 

“I – I set it out for Johnny to trim,” he said, folding easily under her gaze. “But –”

“He didn’t,” she finished. “It’s not really his speed, Dad.” 

He shrugged. He knew that. That was why he didn’t understand why it bothered him so much that Johnny had gotten up and left without so much as an explanation. He’d expected snarky comments, he had been prepared for everything he thought Johnny Lawrence could throw at him. He hadn’t expected outright rejection. 

“I just thought…” 

Sam smiled sadly at him. “Why does it matter what he thinks about your bonsai?” she asked. 

Daniel looked down at the tree, practically begging to be trimmed, and sighed. “This particular bonsai,” he said quietly. “It was a little runty thing, small and weak. I thought it was going to die – I remember your mom asking me if it was even worth watering. I brought it home, hoping I could nurse it back to health. And…you know what, it’s stubborn. It fought for every one of its strong roots, and it flourished once I showed it some love and attention.” 

Sam pursed her lips and considered the tree. “Did you tell him that?” 

“Of course not,” he said. If Johnny hadn’t run away before he even got his hands on some clippers, he certainly would have bolted if Daniel had said the stubborn little tree reminded him of Johnny himself. That was just something that he couldn’t say. 

“If the bonsai is more than just a tree, then you should say something,” she pointed out. “Or else you’re asking to get your feelings hurt.” 

He looked down at his daughter, who was still surveying the tree. “When did you get so wise?” 

“Mr. Miyagi helped,” she said. She put her hand on his arm. “Sensei Lawrence has always been really good at hurting your feelings,” she said knowingly. “I just don’t think I’ll ever understand why you keep letting him.” 

***

Johnny went to their next training early, intent on at least apologizing to LaRusso before they could get into another awkward couple of hours training teenagers together without speaking. But the man was in the house, locked up in his office, and Johnny found himself at a loss instead, standing in the garden alone. 

It didn’t stop him from feeling nervous, his hands fidgeting with his car keys. He didn’t plan out what he was going to say – he knew it wouldn’t matter. He would try to speak and LaRusso would probably interrupt him and the plan would go to shit. The only plan he had was to at least get out the words _I’m sorry_ before LaRusso punched him.

He found the bonsai sitting right where he left it, looking forlorn and forgotten. He felt a pang of guilt looking at it. How had LaRusso not moved it? 

He reached his hand out and gently brushed the leaves, back and forth, like he was petting a dog. They looked rough on the outside but the movement was surprisingly gentle and soothing. He closed his eyes and let his fingers feel what his eyes couldn’t see – 

“Sensei Lawrence?” 

He yanked his hand back and turned around. Sam was leaning against the open back door, her arms crossed in front of her pink shirt. If he had to guess, based on her face alone, he’d say that she knew he fucked up. 

“Uh, hey,” he said awkwardly. “Is your dad here?” 

“Not for you,” she said flatly. 

He supposed he deserved that. “I came here to apologize,” he said, even if the word sounded heavy and awkward in his mouth. 

She blinked at him, like she didn’t really believe him, and he guessed he didn’t really blame her. “Why didn’t you want to trim the bonsai?” she asked. Johnny sighed heavily, and she pressed forward, taking the advantage. “Because as far as keeping the peace, this would have been easy.” 

“Do you trim these?” he asked, reaching out to touch the lonely tree again. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Dad taught me when I was a kid.” 

“Don’t you worry that you’re going to mess them up?” he asked, tearing his eyes away from her and looking down at the poor little bushy thing, small and wild and _unruined._ “Like whatever you see in your mind is wrong?” 

“It’s not wrong if it came from your mind,” Sam said, and her voice was marginally gentler now, like she was figuring him out, and he didn’t really like that. “That’s the point.” 

“Yeah,” he said like he didn’t really believe her. “Have you ever been so sure that something you were doing was right, only to find out that you were making a huge mistake?” 

She inhaled slowly, thinking of how to answer the question, and let all the air out in one go. “No,” she said. “When I made a mistake, there was always a hint.” 

“Not for me,” he said quietly, turning his shoulders away from her and toward the bonsai. 

She stepped up behind him and stood at the edge of the platform, looking out at the garden. “You know what I think?” she asked. 

“Of course not.” 

She gave him a narrow-eyed glare that reminded him too much of her mother. “I think you’re so used to thinking you messed everything up that now you’re self-sabotaging.” 

“Do you,” he said flatly. 

“I learned about it in my psychology class,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re a good sensei,” she said. “Like really good. And you really helped Miguel. And you’re helping Robby. The only thing you’re messing up is whatever is going on with my dad. When things go well, you do something to mess it up because you think you deserve it, or you think things will go to hell anyway, so why not be in control of it?” 

“That’s not – at all –”

He heard the gate to the garden open and realized his window of apology had closed. Student chatter filled the serene space, and when he looked back, Sam had retreated back to the house and when she came back out, Daniel was with her, eyes turned determinedly ahead. 

It would be easy to not say anything, to teach the class and run when it was over, but as she went down the steps to the grass, Sam looked back at Johnny and raised her eyebrows, like she could read his thoughts. 

So he reached out and caught Daniel around the elbow. His eyes went to his hand before it found his face, and he looked resigned, like he was expecting something that would make him unhappy. Johnny tried to push down the guilt he felt at the expression alone. 

He leaned in and said “I’m sorry,” into his ear and pulled back. They didn’t have time to discuss it. 

But Daniel looked at him for a long time afterward, his brows lifted in surprise, eyes shining like he didn’t know what to say. Johnny took that as a good sign. 

***

Daniel didn’t dare hope that Johnny would stick around after training ended – he figured the murmured apology would be it, and they would be expected to go back to how they’d been before, gentle teasing and long, lingering eye contact that they never talked about. And then the kids were leaving and he was still there, and then Sam was leaving and when she left, she put her arm on Johnny’s and said something quietly to him. 

He gave her an eye roll and then she was gone, and Daniel was confused. 

“Your daughter is smarter than you,” was the first thing Johnny said. He tilted his head at him, eyebrows up. 

“How so?” he asked. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. He leaned over and let his hand brush over the leaves of the bonsai. “So uh…how do you…how do you do this?” 

Daniel crossed his arms. “You gonna run out of here again?” 

Johnny’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t rise to the bait. “I said I was sorry,” he said, a little petulantly. “I meant it.” 

“Why did you run?” 

He turned away, back to the bonsai, and touched it with the tips of his fingers. “I don’t…I can’t do what you want me to do,” he said softly. “I can’t picture what I want this thing to look like. I don’t know what to do with it.” 

“It can look however you want,” Daniel protested weakly. 

Johnny shook his head. “But that’s just it. Everything I have ever pictured has never turned out the same in real life.” 

“Sometimes your vision changes,” Daniel said, shrugging. “That’s fine.” 

“LaRusso, I can’t just cut this tree down to nothing,” Johnny said, and he sounded a little hysterical now. “This – this thing is for people who are smart, or thoughtful, or whatever. I’m not any of those things. All I’m going to do is disappoint you.” 

“How?” Daniel asked, and when Johnny looked over, he sat down on one of the chairs set at the table. “I have no expectations of what the tree should look like.” 

Johnny took the seat and blinked, looking over at the tree instead of at him. “I’m too stupid for this, LaRusso,” he said quietly. “Don’t give me a bonsai to trim. Please.” 

Daniel studied his profile, the hard line of his jaw, the way it twitched like he was grinding his teeth. He could see his fidgeting fingers, the carefully guarded way he held himself. He stood up, pulling his chair out of the way, and motioned for Johnny to do the same. 

He pulled the chair away and stepped behind him, his hands gently raising Johnny’s arms so his hands were lingering over the tops of the leaves. He pressed the clippers gently into Johnny’s right hand and left his hand over Johnny’s fingers. 

“Are you pulling a _Ghost_?” Johnny asked, but he still sounded worried, so Daniel hid his smile behind his back. 

“Desperate times,” he whispered, and Johnny turned halfway to look at him, blue eyes pale and beautiful. “Close your eyes.” 

“LaRusso –”

“Trust me,” he said. “Close your eyes.” 

He let his other hand guide Johnny’s over the leaves. “You’re not stupid,” he said, resting his chin on Johnny’s shoulders, ignoring how he had to go on his tip-toes to do it. “You’re strong, and you’re capable.” He gently guided Johnny’s hand over the leaves. “I want you to empty your mind of all the thoughts that tell you that you can’t be smart, that you can’t be something.” 

“Okay,” his voice was feather light, almost gone. 

“I want you to think instead about what makes you feel strong. What makes you feel worthy.” Daniel pulled his chin off Johnny’s shoulder and let his forehead rest between Johnny’s shoulder blades, withdrawing his hands just a little. “Keep your eyes closed. Find a stray leaf or branch that you think doesn’t belong and cut it.” 

He waited for a long time before he heard the first _snip._

“Picture what the tree should be,” he said, and he felt Johnny shiver against him. “How do you want yourself to be?” 

Johnny didn’t say anything, but Daniel could feel his hands moving over the tree. 

“Open your eyes,” Daniel whispered. “And trim until the tree matches your vision.” 

He released his arms and stepped back, only for Johnny to drop the trimmers on the table and turn around, catching him around one arm and the back of the neck. The kiss was solid, with no hesitation, done with the same decisiveness that Daniel had hoped to encourage. Johnny’s hand slid into his hair and his pulled away for half a second to tilt his head and get a better angle. Daniel held tightly to his waist, as if he would be knocked off balance if he didn’t. 

And then Johnny was pulling away and picking up the clippers again, turning back to the bonsai, and Daniel was left with his mouth open and face flushed, watching him work, seemingly unbothered. 

He laughed, covering his mouth, and watched Johnny peek at him over his shoulder. 

“I’m trying to concentrate, LaRusso,” he said, faux-seriously, his hand that wasn’t holding the clippers reaching for Daniel’s arm and pulling him flush against his back again. Daniel wrapped his arms around his waist and hooked his hands together and just held. 

Johnny breathed, the expansion of his lungs prompting Daniel to take a deep breath of his own. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, and Daniel heard the _snip, snip, snip_ and closed his eyes, resting his head on Johnny’s back while he worked. 

When he was finished, Daniel was half-dozing, the lulling sound of Johnny’s breathing and the clippers lulling him into a comfortable almost-sleep. He jolted awake to the sound of Johnny setting the clippers on the table, and leaned around his broad torso to see the finished product. 

It was crisp and clean, the leaves cut meticulously so they were straight and lying exactly where Johnny wanted them. The little branch on the bottom, the one that Daniel would have clipped off himself, had been trimmed back but was still there, fighting for its own place on the main trunk. 

“Do you like it?” Johnny asked, and Daniel looked up at him and caught him staring, lips twisted into almost a frown. 

“Do you?” he asked. 

“I think so,” Johnny said, his bottom lip between his teeth now. “It’s easy when you’re here.” 

Daniel beamed up at him, unable to dim his bright smile. Johnny just blinked, and the wrinkles around his eyes softened, the way they always did when he was really happy, even if his mouth wasn’t smiling, and Daniel ducked his head so he had Johnny’s arm around his shoulders. 

“Do you want to take it inside?” he asked. “I have a place for it, so you can see it whenever you come over.” 

“You have a place for it?” Johnny asked, surprised, and Daniel felt that ache in his chest, the same one he felt whenever Johnny brought up his step-dad, or Kreese, or Robby. That incredulous tone of voice that told Daniel that he just wasn’t used to people thinking of him, or deciding that he mattered. 

“Of course I have a place for it,” he said. _And you_ went unsaid, but Johnny’s eyes looked like he heard it. But Daniel didn’t want to frighten him, so he just tugged him down to kiss him again, this time soft and slow, his fingers on the edge of Johnny’s jaw. 

“Come on,” he said, tugging him toward the door. “I’ll show you.”


End file.
